Zdeno Kostka / Photography

Enchanted in Ice

Zdeno Kostka was born in and still lives in Liptovsky Mikulas, in mountainous North Slovakia. A self-taught photographer, he works in water research. He has a years-long passion for photography, and is a member of the Association of Slovak Photographers and the Slovak Centre of Photographic Art.

The portfolios “Enchanted in Ice” and “Galaxies of Water Streams” came into being after several years of walking along glistening brooks and streams, looking for shapes and forms, and (sometimes) photographing them. The summer series, that I originally called “Painted on Water,” was my first compact portfolio. These subjects are still my favorite. The pictures of sun-ray creations on the surface of flowing or frozen water streams are a kind of close-range photography.

Admiring shapes, colors and forms on water surface and photographing them is not only a creative experience to me, but also mitigrates everyday pressures. Nowadays it is more and more difficult to find a landscape intact. That’s why I look for subjects with poor lighting or shrouded by mist, and mostly focus on remarkable and curious parts, and small details of landscape and nature – natural still life.

It is rumored that the photographer taking photos without a preplanned and thoughtful subject is like a writer or artist sitting with pencil over blank sheet of paper without the idea. But photography of nature and its details and wonders means something else. Nature in not the same as a blank sheet of paper. It is full of signs and voices whispering, speaking, and sometimes crying, at the photographer. And that is the moment when the camera ceases to obstruct and turns into the natural part of photographer’s eye and hand. It is the time when the calm is coming and the fine photography may arise.

Archive

History…

The name Ragazine was coined in the mid-’70s in Columbus, Ohio, as the title of an alternative newspaper/magazine put together by a group of friends. It was revived in 2004 as ragazine.cc, the on-line magazine of arts, information and entertainment, a collaboration of artists, writers, poets, photographers, travelers and interested others. And that’s what it still is.